


All I Hear is Your Gear...

by herebewyverns



Series: The Third Side [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Aziraphale Needs a Hug (Good Omens), Caring Aziraphale (Good Omens), Gen, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), The Bentley Ships It (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-01-13 04:23:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21238109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herebewyverns/pseuds/herebewyverns
Summary: When humans need sanctuary, they go to holy places. But Aziraphale isn’t human. He has the next best thing, though: Crowley’s Bentley.





	1. Aziraphale

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, thank you so much to Hawkwind1980 for beta-ing and poking me to stay on track with this!

Seeing Crowley return to him after all these long, lonely years… it’s more than Aziraphale has hoped for in quite some time. Of course - this being Crowley - it had to be in such a dramatic fashion, but Aziraphale has learned to expect such things from his demon by this point. Goes with the shades and the walk and _smile_, all that drama.

And it certainly _had _been an eventful evening: bombed-out church, dead Nazis, rescued books…_[1]_

“Lift home?”

And the car.

Maybe if Crowley had returned in a more normal fashion, just walked up to Aziraphale in St James’, or slipped into his club for a quiet drink with an old friend, or dropped into the chair next to him at the Ritz, Aziraphale wouldn’t associate the Bentley with such a feeling of safety. Like comfort to the desolate, water to the thirsty, warmth to the cold, sanctuary to the needy.

But he does.

The Bookshop is all well and good, but for so long it has been a part of his job, his work; where his – ah – _colleagues_ can drop in on him. And Aziraphale … sometimes he needs to feel safe, too.

The backseat of the Bentley might not be the pews of a church or the safe-house of the fugitive or the oasis in the desert. But it is the closest thing Aziraphale has to any of these things.

He’s an angel; he is meant to _give_ comfort and safety, not receive it, after all.

But even the strongest people need somewhere to safely break down…

And the Bentley keeps its secrets nearly as well as an angel can.

_[1] In the opinion of a certain demon, it had certain been an eventful evening; rude awakenings, horrified realisations about timing, burned feet and worrying that your angel will never want to speak to you again. It was all worth the drama, he would have told anyone who might potentially listen, to find out that his angel would, in fact, happily talk his ear off the whole way home._

**1\. Curiosity**

The first time… The first time, Aziraphale wasn’t looking for comfort. Not really. He was looking for _answers_.

Because Aziraphale had been so terribly _sure_ that he knew Crowley, knew him right down to his bones. And then Crowley had asked for a suicide pill and been refused and disappeared and then …

And then he’d returned.

Been asleep, he’d said, just woken up.

And it hadn’t fitted Aziraphale’s picture of him at all. _[2] _

Neither did the Bentley.

Oh, it did in some ways! It was such a glorious shade of black, the kind of black that looked so stylish all on its own. And the angles! So sharp and sleek, so sinuous and provocative! And it was _fast_, so terribly frighteningly _fast_. And oh! How very Crowley to delight in something so recklessly dangerous, the wretch.

But it was also… the Bentley was old even by the time Aziraphale met it. He’d not taken to cars much himself, but he’d noticed them on the roads. He’d learned about the innovations and such from excited young men gossiping by his shop door. New engines, new models, new shapes new _everything_ seemed to come out every year!

And here was the Bentley. Made in 1927, which in car terms was _dreadfully_ long ago. _[3]_

Not that Aziraphale would ever say as much to Crowley, watching as the demon cooed to the machine and patted its dashboard and stroked its steering wheel in a manner which was most _unnecessarily_ suggestive. Oh no, Crowley didn’t mind one bit that his car wasn’t shiny and new. Well, it was certainly _shiny,_ as good care as Crowley seemed to take of the thing.

But Crowley _likes_ new things. Likes the latest fashions, even when they’re terrible. _[4] _Likes new composers, especially when they cause a bit of a stir. Likes new inventions and new art styles and new sins.

The Bentley’s _not_ new, not at all. And so it doesn’t quite fit the pattern that Aziraphale has become used to.

It’s a new puzzle piece, and Aziraphale wants nothing more than to understand.

So he comes back – _sneaks_ back really, if he were to be truly honest. Creeps back after London has grown quiet again and the bombs have stopped falling and everyone is asleep or as good as.

He wonders at Crowley leaving the doors unlocked; surely a demon would know better than anyone else what wicked people there are in the world, especially when times are so hard as they are. But no, the door opens for him quiet and smooth, and he slides in, closing it after him with a small _click_. _[5]_

And in the darkness, Aziraphale sits there. Surrounded by leather and polished wood and plush carpet. Breathes in the quiet and then breathes in _Crowley_. His scent is all over the interior, seeped in so deep that he’ll never leave it now.

“Why you?” he wonders aloud. “What was it about you that drew him in so?”

Oh, it’s foolish to ask the car as if it should answer him, he knows. But Aziraphale is alone with his own thoughts far too often - even more so for the past eighty years - and having _something_ to talk to is rather nice for a change.

He contemplates the car for a while longer, noting the craftsmanship that went into making it, the care that has gone into maintaining it. How very, _utterly_ stylish it is, now that he takes the time to look.

“Well, you’ve certainly got style, haven’t you, dear?” He muses. “Perhaps that’s it. He does so like things with style; he invented it, you know?” _[6]_

A spring creaks somewhere in the upholstery, and Aziraphale smiles while he pretends to himself that the car wishes to know more. _[7]_

“Oh yes, he’s a very inventive soul, is our Crowley. Got a great many ideas, you know. I mean, they’re terribly wicked ones too, and I oughtn’t to encourage him at all in his evil wiles and all that… But you won’t tell him that I admire his mind so, will you? It’ll be our secret.”

He babbles on for a while longer, he thinks. He’s… He’s _missed _Crowley ever so much. Missed talking to him, yes, but he’d also missed talking _about _him too. He can’t talk about Crowley with any of the other angels, now can he? And humans? Well, he tries, he really does, but there are so many gaps that he has to leave in all his stories, or else they turn out dreadfully vague and that sort of thing unsettles humans very much when they can pick up on that sort of thing.

It’s best not to even begin talking about Crowley, Aziraphale has found, or else he never seems to be able to stop himself. But now there’s just Aziraphale and Crowley’s car, who Aziraphale can almost believe really _is _listening closely as he speaks.

“You’re a little old, my dear,” Something in the engine _hisses_ like an indignant cat. “But then again you’re nowhere near as old as we two are. Goodness, not by a long shot! And do you know? I do believe that you care for him as much as you are able to, which is no small thing, not to me. Long my you continue to do so… You and I, dear, we might well be the only two old things he has in his life right now. Best that we stick together, don’t you think?”

The car, of course, has nothing to say in return, but that’s alright. Aziraphale already knows that he’ll be coming back, but it felt only polite to ask.

As he gets out of the vehicle, Aziraphale shivers and notices for the first time how cold the night has become. Funny, he never felt even a little bit cold in the Bentley… _[8]_

“Thank you for taking care of me, my dear.” He says, patting the Bentley’s roof gently. “This has been a most enjoyable evening for me. I do hope that I haven’t bored you, but I really must get going or the Bookshop will miss me quite terribly! Until next time, my dear.”

Aziraphale walks away, down familiar streets, thinking to himself.

He might not have expected Crowley have such a car in his life as the Bentley, but he’s must terribly glad that he does.

_[2] Crowley had said before that he slept, but around Aziraphale he was such a constant blur of movement and energy that Aziraphale had never really believed him until now._

_[3] It wasn’t that Aziraphale had never heard the phrase ‘built to last’. He had. It was just that – as an immortal being – he wasn’t entirely sure that humans and he really pictured quite the same thing as the phrase’s definition. The same is true for the word ‘forever’._

_[4] Such as his Parisian haircut. Aziraphale will never take on board Crowley’s mocking of his wardrobe until he stops suddenly being felled by the memory of that haircut._

_[5] In a Mayfair flat, in the dead of night, Crowley’s ears prick up immediately. He waits to see if he hears abject terrified screaming [5.1], but… Nothing. Huh. He wonders what on Earth Aziraphale thinks he’s doing in his car at this hour of the night? Oh well, he’ll check in the morning…_

_[5.1] Why yes, Crowley does consider it to be a lovely form of low-effort demonic activity to leave the Bentley unlocked in the middle of London and wait for an unwary mortal to volunteer for the worst night of their life. It’s the little pleasures, ok?_

_[6] Well… He’d certainly say so, anyway. With Crowley, one could never be sure…_

_[7] It does, of course, but we shall return to this later…_

_[8] Naturally. Cars don’t let new friends get cold now, do they? Especially ones their demons are so fond of…_

**2\. Fear**

At first it’s every night. Then it’s every _other_ night. Then it’s just once a week. But for months and months and months it continues, in the small hours of the night just before a new dawn breaks.

The door to the backseat opens and an angel tumbles in, frantic and shaking and curls up in the footwell as small as he possibly can. _[9]_

And every time it is the same litany, over and over: _Is he safe? Is he still safe? Is he still here?_

The first night he had tumbled into the Bentley, he had been shaking so hard with fear he’d barely managed to pull the door closed behind him. His voice had shaken so hard he wasn’t sure he’d make himself understood as he confessed, to the one thing in all Creation who would understand the magnitude of the confession, the awful risk he had undertaken, the dreadful thing he may have done. To Crowley, yes. But to them both also.

Aziraphale still can’t believe that he has done such a stupid thing. What kind of friend is he that he gave Crowley _Holy Water_?

Oh, of course at the time he’d felt that there’d been no choice at all. He couldn’t let Crowley go around risking his life like that in some mad caper when Aziraphale could give him the same final result without any of the inherent danger to his friend’s person. Of course Aziraphale had felt compelled to give him a flask full of the wretched stuff as safely as he possibly could.

But now…

Now all Aziraphale can do is wait… wait and worry.

Crowley has in his own two hands now the one and only thing in all the world which could destroy him almost without trace. Take him finally and irrevocably away to the one place where Aziraphale cannot follow him. Take him away from all the risks and trials and frustrations of the strange life they lead together. Take him away too from the pleasures and joys and surprises too, of course, but Aziraphale… How is he to know how the balance lies for Crowley? How is he to know if it will all be enough?

And so here he is, bundled into the backseat of the Bentley once again, while he confesses his worries and concerns away as if to a human priest and not a car. Breathing in Crowley’s scent, touching the things Crowley has collected here and there and stowed away in his car, reaching out with all his angelic senses to find every scrap and trace of demonic habitation he can find. It’s one of the only things he can find to soothe him and his frazzled nerves; reassure himself that Crowley is perfectly fine and just carrying on with his demonic existence with nary a care in the world.

The Bentley is Crowley’s so utterly and completely these days, has probably had more of his presence than his flat, than Aziraphale’s bookshop… _[10]_

If Crowley went and took that final, awful step… the car would be different, wouldn’t it? Bleaker and desolate without its demon. Empty, the way all abandoned things are.

Maybe the Bentley would cease to exist altogether, even?

“If he left us like that…” He whispers to the Bentley, kindly listener that she is. “If he did… Would you want me to take care of you, my dear? Or… would you want for me to send you after him?” _[11]_

There is a strange creak of springs again, almost like distress.

Old cars make a lot of little inconsequential noises, Aziraphale has learned, but he likes to imagine that they are the Bentley’s responses every time. He supposes it makes him less strange, talking to an inanimate object the way he does.

“Oh, I hope that he will be alright too, my dear. But … I should like you to know that I will … I will support you however you would like best. It is only fair after all; it will have been my fault that he had – well, that he had such an option. Best to take responsibility for the consequences, don’t you think?”

The sighs of leather and plush stuffing as he shifts against the seatbacks sound like reassurance. Aziraphale scrubs shaking hands against his face and pretends he’s not wiping away tears.

“No, no, you’re quite right. There’s nothing to worry about, is there? He’s fine, and one day he’ll find out about all this fretting and fussing I’ve been doing and find the whole thing utterly hilarious, won’t he? _[12] _You’re quite right, my dear. I ought to spend less time borrowing future trouble, oughtn’t I?”

He takes a deep breath, straightens his posture, his waistcoat and his legs, before settling back much more consciously into the attitude of a casual conversation.

“Did you enjoy that little jaunt he took you on to Leicester, dear? Such a dreadfully long way, I know, and he wouldn’t even _hint_ to me what it was for. Oh, obviously some temptation or other, but really the _secrecy _he insisted on! I suppose at the speeds he takes you up to, it didn’t take all that long at all though, did it? I do hope you didn’t run into so much rain as we had down here…”

He continues to chatter away for a while, letting the sure and solid confidence of Crowley’s continued well-being seep back into his bones for another while. The dread and fear will return eventually, but the Bentley will see him through it the way she always does.

They keep watch together into the coming dawn, as is their little custom.

_[9] Angels don’t sleep, and so Aziraphale has never experienced a nightmare before. The unsung benefit of nightmares, he has now learned, is that one can wake from their falsehoods and enter a reality which looks brighter by the comparison. Reality is not a nightmare; it can and has become so, so much worse._

_[10] Though not from the lack of Crowley trying…_

_[11] Aziraphale had been a soldier before he’d been anything else, and as an angel he was still, fundamentally, a being of Mercy. Leaving a friend to die by painful inches unnecessarily was cruel to his mind._

_[12] This is, of course, false; Crowley would never laugh at anything which caused his angel pain, nor would he ever want to be a party to causing it. Sadly, Crowley was very certain that Aziraphale was having an inconvenient fit of ‘angelic-ness’ again, and thus that his objections were more based in paperwork and piety rather than genuine feeling…_

**3\. Pain**

Aziraphale is an angel, he’s supposed to be poised, and graceful and in control of himself.

Tonight – which is indeed, in all truthfulness, only the latest of several nights - he is not.

He can’t seem to stop the bleeding, and his clothes are _ruined_ and he feels suspiciously cold.

He doesn’t so much slide into the backseat of the Bentley as flop in a most ungainly manner.

It doesn’t matter; there’s no one to see him like this.

This is the third time this week that Aziraphale has gone to stand with the protesters, taking the blows from batons and riot shields in place of more fragile humans. His angelic corporation is far better able to withstand the attacks, but only up to a point, and to reveal his true angelic form would be a disastrous error. Still, it is always an easy decision for the angel to make, no matter the temporary physical cost. The Almighty Herself told Aziraphale, back in the days leading up to Eden that he was to protect the upcoming humans to the best of his abilities, and though Aziraphale has never found that to be an easy task, he would like to think that he has never stopped trying his very best to do so.

He hisses as he feels cloth pull uncomfortably against broken skin, and his flinch only further aggravates the broken ribs to boot. Today was a rather worse beating than he has had for a while, but it was worth it to cover the vulnerable backs and heads of young men whose crime was to ask for better, and to follow a man who dared them to do so.

It is not a struggle Heaven takes any interest in, no matter what Aziraphale writes in his increasingly desperate reports, but Aziraphale is not blind to his own concern in the cause. There are echoes here – as there always are with such conflicts – of the very first time opposing sides faced off: the Great War.

No, Aziraphale will not stand down from his Duty, no matter what Gabriel might say in his wretched memos. It does not mean that the injuries he must now deal with hurt any less, however…

A good angel would go to Heaven with an injury like this; it would be the responsible thing to do really. Get himself sewn up, cleaned out, get his strength back amidst all that celestial grace and goodness…_[13]_

Besides Aziraphale kind of hates Heaven’s constant flow of celestial grace … It feels very over-done to him; like Heaven still feels that it has something to prove, over 6000 years after the Great War ended.

There’s a kind of nouveau-riche shine to the whole thing, and it’s grating enough when Aziraphale feels his usual self. Now, while he drips and shakes and struggles for breath? No, Aziraphale isn’t going to Heaven unless he’s truly at Death’s door.

Usually when he enters the Bentley he curls himself up as small as he can, but now he needs to lie down flat.

“Dreadfully sorry about this, old girl,” he mutters to her. “Never fear, I shan’t leave any blood in your upholstery once I’ve put everything to rights.” _[14]_

He’s never entirely sure if the Bentley is listening, but there’s far too much of Crowley in her these days for him to be comfortable treating her as if she’s not. Besides, having someone to talk to is good for you; he’s read that somewhere. _[15]_

He stares at her ceiling for a while and concentrates on taking deep breaths. He doesn’t – strictly speaking – need them, but they’re something to think about that isn’t how much his wounds hurt, so that’s something.

The seats creak and sigh away at him, and he pats the back of the driver’s seat absently as if comforting a friend.

“There, there, my dear. Just a mistake on my part, silly of me I know. Just need a moment to collect myself and a safe spot and I’ll be healed in a jiffy. And you’re quite one of the safest spots I know, aren’t you, my dear?” _[16]_

There is more sighing, presumably as Aziraphale shifts his weight around. Funny… He’s sure he didn’t turn the heater on, but it’s gently warming him now, and that’s a great help. He’s not built for the cold, and being so gravely injured rather takes it out of him.

Once he’s warm he gathers the strength to sit up, tugging off his tie, his jacket, and his waistcoat before looking rather disconsolately at his blood-stained shirt.

“Dreadful mess they’ve made of me, isn’t it? You know, I’ve had this shirt for longer than Crowley’s had _you_, my dear. And now look at it! I’ll never get it clean, I just know it…”

The Bentley ‘listens’ away with her usual silence, just as Aziraphale would expect her to, and he jabbers with possibly less coherence than is customary for him, blood-loss and pain being what it is. That’s the problem with inhabiting a human form for so long. One develops the dreadful habit of forgetting on some deep and instinctive level that one is not bound to the same rules as they are. Mind you, Aziraphale has some serious doubts about whether his true angelic form would actually _fit_ inside the Bentley, so there’s that…

What was he doing?

Oh, yes! His shirt! The blood…

“You know, while I have all this blood around the place… I wonder if you’d like for me to draw a few runes on you, my dear? Just for added protection and the like. Best to give you a little more than Crowley’s sense of the worth inherent in his own personal safety, should it come down to it, wouldn’t you say?” _[17]_

There’s no response from the Bentley, of course, but the idea has rather taken root in Aziraphale’s mind now, and it seems to him and his slightly foggy logic to be a simply _marvellous_ notion!

He can’t think why he didn’t do this before, except that of course the best wards are all drawn in blood, aren’t they? And you can call Aziraphale an old fusspot if you like,_ [18]_ but he’s rather keen on keeping all his blood inside of him, as a general rule.

But now it’s all seeping out of him _anyway_…

It’s just a few wards. Aziraphale might have liked to add more, add more complicated ones too, but Crowley would _certainly_ notice then, and however would Aziraphale explain to him why he’d been inside the Bentley without him? Or indeed why he’d been bleeding.

The extra drain on his Grace wears him down even further, which Aziraphale belatedly realises he ought to have anticipated. _[19]_ Still, it’s worth it to keep Crowley a bit safer, the way he drives...

He waits as long as he dares, though, until the sun is almost over the horizon before taking another deep breath he doesn’t need and healing himself up. It’s not a perfect job, of course, and he’s quite sure that any angelic healer would have _words_ to say about his technique. It works, though, and his form is restored nicely.

“Just have to take it a little more easy than usual for a few days, won’t I, old girl?” He mutters aloud. “Perfectly good excuse not to open the bookshop is how I see it. _[20]_ Very reasonable. And there now, _you’ve_ got some nice extra features – that _is_ what they all them, isn’t it, dear? – so everyone’s won themselves a little something this night.”

For a long, awkward moment, Aziraphale can’t seem to get the door open. He wonders if it has stuck fast, but Crowley would never stand for his car to have faulty parts now, would he? No, it must be Aziraphale’s fumbling, always doing it, isn’t he?

In the end, he is forced to just miracle himself outside of the vehicle and say his goodbyes to her bonnet. Most unorthodox of him, but it’s been a very strange night from start to finish.

A few days’ rest, Aziraphale promises himself as he takes his leave, a few days’ rest and everything will make much more sense.

He does hope that Crowley doesn’t notice the wards, though… That would be tricky to explain… _[21]_

_[13] Indeed, the first time this had happened, he had. It had not, even by the very kindest of definitions gone well. Raphael is a dreadful tartar when angels come to her infirmary with unexplained injuries, and Aziraphale is well-aware that he is, at best, a recalcitrant patient. His injuries had been bad enough that she had immediately assumed he had been set upon by demons, and despite his best efforts to call the whole mess the result of a dreadful misunderstanding had immediately notified the archangels. In the end, she had been obliged to throw Sandalphon and Michael from the room when they sneered at Aziraphale for being ‘roughed up’ by some humans, and Gabriel had been most curt with Aziraphale for ignoring his instructions. Aziraphale had smiled vaguely and taken his leave. He had not returned, no matter how many blows he took._

_[14] Keeping these little … incidents from Crowley’s notice has taken considerable guile and cunning, which Aziraphale would be more ashamed of were it not in such a frightfully good cause. If Crowley ever discovered what Aziraphale was getting up to, he’d either insist on coming with him to be beaten too, the dear brave creature, or do something quite dreadful to those involved. In general, Crowley understands just as well as Aziraphale that humans can get awfully carried away with themselves, but the angel suspects that the demon would take things rather more personally if he ever found out about … all of this. [14.1]_

_[14.5] This is entirely correct. Crowley would._

_[15] Not in a book, for once. Giving out the miracle of healing as often as he does, Aziraphale has spent a lot of time in hospital waiting rooms. He can also tell you 176 ‘Top Ten Ways to Get Your Man,’ though he is a little dubious about … well, all of them._

_[16] One of the safest places in London for a certain angel, certainly. Crowley would have stood for nothing less, had he been aware. But also one of the places most thoroughly infused with love. Angels heal much better when surrounded by love, which is why the Bentley is always the place Aziraphale heads to after a … long day…_

_[17] Sweet as Aziraphale’s concerns are, they are in this instance entirely misplaced. Crowley is a demon, and thus neither naïve or stupid. He’d never drive the way he does without something more than good fortune to assist him, but to go prying into the magical make-up of an item one does not own without asking is a frightfully rude thing to do, is it not?_

_[18] And believe him, many have tried._

_[19] Somewhere Up There, the angels in charge of the Angelic Risk Assessments Office are briefly pained for no discernible reason…_

_[20] To every grey cloud, in Aziraphale’s view, there is a silver lining…_

_[21] Despite the great care Crowley takes of the Bentley, he will not. This is not due to carelessness at all, but rather the fact that Aziraphale has rather made wards and protections his life’s hobby while on Earth and unless he means for it to happen, no one can find his work once it is completed. (Flaming swords excepted, of course.)_

**4\. Relief**

It is the Times After the End Times.

Aziraphale can’t quite believe it himself, and he has now – miraculously – lived through it!

Of course nothing is so simple as all that. It’s not over quite yet and unless this ridiculous, risky plan he managed to talk Crowley into actually works then it will _never_ be over. _[22]_

Switching bodies had been… it had been so _much_. To have for the briefest of seconds been as close as two occult/ethereal beings possibly could be, closer than any human could even imagine being, it had been…Aziraphale almost blushes to think of it.

But there again, there was having to send Crowley off into London in the early hours, with a strict agreement to meet up later in St James’ Park. And that had been awful.

Aziraphale has no way of knowing if Crowley will be able to make the appointment, or if something dreadful were to happen to him on the way. He curses himself for refusing to ever take up with mobile phones, so he has nothing he can plausibly call Crowley up on and talk to him all morning. _[23]_

Investigating Crowley’s flat seems like an obvious choice of occupation, but… Aziraphale is quite sure that it would be an appalling breach of the trust Crowley is putting in him. Crowley had only just invited Aziraphale into his flat _last night_, after all. What would the poor dear soul think if he’d found out that Aziraphale had rifled through his belongings in his absence the first chance he got?

Then it occurs to him…

The Bentley.

Yesterday, Aziraphale had been too caught up in the Apocalypse and being discorporated and escaping Heaven through _highly_ dubious means _[24] _and all to really register the loss of the dear old car he’d come to know and love. Oh, Crowley had certainly made time to grieve her properly, of course. But that was Crowley, with a heart the size of a star and twice as warm, the darling creature.

“Well, there’s no time like the present, now is there?” He mutters to himself, before traipsing down to the ground floor and heading towards the Bentley’s old parking spot…

…

Only…

There she is. Waiting for him.

Well, waiting for _Crowley_ really. But… After all, Aziraphale _does_ currently look like Crowley, doesn’t he? And the poor dear has had quite as traumatic few days as the rest of them. It’s only right for him to catch her up on all the goings-on.

Besides - Aziraphale justifies to himself as he slides comfortably into the backseat as usual - Crowley would have to go and sit in his car as soon as he got her back, wouldn’t he? Aziraphale’s just staying in character.

“Hello there, my dear old girl… It’s been, well I can’t tell you how lovely it is to see you again.”

The Bentley gives a little squeak of springs that Aziraphale has always interpreted as puzzlement.

“Oh, why do I look like this do you mean? Well, that’s a dreadfully long story, old girl, but I assure you that he’s quite alright and it’s all a part of our cunning plan! You see…”

He chatters away, filling the Bentley in on everything from the past week, his fears, his regrets, his small moments of happiness. He shares the look on the Quartermaster’s face when he declared so grandly that he had no _intention_ of fighting in _any_ war. He tells her how much he hopes that her resurrection means that the Bookshop is alright. Salvageable at least.

“After all, my dear, young Adam did seem ever so thorough in delving into our minds back at the airbase. No time to explain everything, you see, much easier that way. And I can’t imagine that the sad demise of the Bookshop wasn’t right at the top of my mind the whole time… Surely the place will be… well, hopes springs eternal, don’t they say? Best to hold onto hope until after Crowley comes back…”

The morning passes along quite pleasantly this way, he finds, and before he knows it he will need to leave immediately and likely rush a little if he wants to make his meeting with Crowley in the park.

“I’d bring you along, old girl, but neither of us will enjoy me learning to drive all at once, and especially on a day like today. Best not to risk it. Oh look, how miraculous for a taxi to arrive like that, so wonderful. Well, I do hope that this all goes well, my dear, and that we shall _both _be seeing you quite soon. Tootle pip.”

He climbs into the taxi and heads off, gently nudging traffic out of the way and egging the traffic lights on to quicker changes.

It’s strange, but he’s not at all as nervous now as he was…

After all, if the Bentley is back in the land of the living, then everything _must_ be working out alright, mustn’t it?

She’s never steered him wrong before in his hopes and fears.

_[22] Or it _will_ be over, but very permanently._

_[23] Some might say - *ahem* certain demonic someones *ahem* - that this is a sure sign that Aziraphale will simply have to resign himself to the times and acquire one of the wretched things. However, assuming they are actually able to pull this mad scheme off, Aziraphale rather thinks that he much prefers _his_ plan, which is to simply never let the demon out of his sight ever again. Much more efficient and cost-effective, wouldn’t you say?_

_[24] Not to mention uncomfortable. While grateful for its timely assistance in his escape, Aziraphale means to never try travelling through the universe’s firmament at such high-speeds ever again!_

**5\. Peace**

After everything has settled down, after Heaven and Hell have agreed to leave them alone at last, one might expect that Aziraphale wouldn’t need to keep hiding in the Bentley. After all, _Everywhere’s_ sort of a safe place for him now.

But…

But, it’s a dreadfully big world when you’re suddenly alone in it. Oh, Aziraphale has _Crowley_, of course he does. He has him so much more than he ever could have imagined before. It’s wonderful, how they never have to worry if they decide to go back to the Bookshop for drinks after dinner, if Crowley falls asleep on the sofa. They never have to calculate how closely they stand, sit, walk next to each other. It’s wonderfully freeing.

But it’s also rather terrifying too, to be so unmoored all of a sudden.

“I didn’t even talk to them all that much, you know Upstairs.” _[25]_ He grumbles to the Bentley from his usual thinking spot. “It’s ridiculous, the way I feel all wrong-footed now that I _can’t_ talk to them. And it’s not that I quite _want_ to talk to them either; what would I even say? ‘Doing well, not missing you at all, Crowley says to go and stuff yourselves?’ Even if they didn’t come to smite us both, it would go down like… now what was it that Crowley said? Oh no, dear, you weren’t here for that conversation; this was back in Eden – goodness that was a long time ago now… 6000 years, indeed. Now then, like a… a _lead balloon._ Yes, that was it! It really _would_ go down like a lead balloon.”_ [26]_

He shifts about a little and resists, as he always does, the urge to do anything suspicious like straighten up the glove compartment or something. Crowley’s never mentioned Aziraphale’s little visits, not once in all the years he’s been making them, although Aziraphale is never entirely sure how the demon could have missed them. Still Crowley is really quite terribly kind at times, no matter what he might say aloud, and perhaps he just wishes not to make Aziraphale uncomfortable?

Crowley really can be the sweetest person…

He pats at her driver’s seat again, like he pats Crowley’s hand sometimes now, when the demon leaves it on the table-top.

“Oh, I’m ever so glad that you’re still here, my dear old girl… Life just wouldn’t be the same without you to talk to. And Crowley would never recover from your loss, I’m quite sure of it. Best to keep yourself nice and safe from now on, don’t you think?”

There is a small sound from the radio, almost like static.

“Oh, I know, I shall have to take _very _great care of myself too. Not that I imagine that Crowley will leave either of us with much of a choice in the matter, the overgrown mother-hen… Still, he’s earned a little while of us being very nice and boring for him until he recovers a bit, don’t you think?”

Aziraphale sighed a little, feeling a bit wistful for the missions and errands of mercy he used to be sent notes on all the time.

“Not that I suppose we’ll have much of a choice, you know. Amazing how botching the End of the World makes for a quiet state of affairs immediately afterwards. Do you know there’s nothing much going on, save for my needing to shoo that dear old – I mean, that blasted flaming sword out of the Bookshop again.”

The Bentley makes that odd little noise like the static of the inactive radio for a moment, then falls guiltily silent.

Aziraphale narrows his eyes at the Bentley’s dashboard, trying to look stern. “Don’t think I don’t know you two are in cahoots, my dear. Unlike Crowley, _I_ am perfectly aware that supposedly inanimate objects can have a mind of their own. You can’t go pulling the wool over _my_ eyes, I tell you.”

The Bentley is silent. Very silent.

Aziraphale sniffs. “Quite. Honestly, you two… You know, either one of you is far too old for this sort of mischief, I’ll have you know! And what on earth you both stand to gain, I’m sure I cannot imagine! Still, I’m sure it will all work out alright in the end, at least I do hope so.”

He sighs, sinking down a little further into the comforting embrace of black leather and Crowley’s scent.

“Oh! And have I told you about all the trouble I’ve been having with the Bookshop lately? Honestly, among the three of you, I shall develop all _sorts_ of worry-lines around my face, and these corporations aren’t easy to maintain in the first place I’ll have you know! No buffing out the nicks and scratches like you, old girl!”

An interrogative squeak comes from the springs.

Aziraphale shakes his head, fond. “Oh, that caught your attention, didn’t it? I suppose the sword hasn’t been keeping you up to date with everything, is it? Well, just as well, otherwise what would we find to talk about, just the two of us? I shall fear becoming quite superfluous if you have another playmate, you know…”

A static-y noise, possibly a snigger this time.

“I _heard_ that, wretched machine. You can’t go around laughing at people when they come to see you, you know? It’s frightfully impolite! Still, I’ll see if I can’t bring you up to date on everything…”

Aziraphale might have had to defy Heaven. He might have lost what few angelic friends he ever had. He might have lost his purpose in the world. _[27]_

But curled up in the backseat of the Bentley, surrounded by love and Crowley and a familiar feeling of comfort… well, Aziraphale felt that he could breathe once again.

Everything would be fine in the end. It always was, wasn’t it?

_[25] Officially anyway. Obviously Aziraphale had plenty of perfectly lovely little chats with interested young guardians, but that was quite different. Besides, they probably won’t want to talk to him these days either, all that being branded a traitor to Heaven business and whatnot…_

_[26] How, exactly, Crowley knew on the eighth day of Eden what a lead balloon was shall remain a mystery. Possibly an ineffable one, come to think of it…_

_[27] Save for that one original Duty given to him personally by Herself. Humanity, after all, was now very distinctly not_ going anywhere.


	2. The Bentley

The angel was not at all what the Bentley had expected. Oh, the Bentley might not know very much about angels, being a car, but her dear mad demon had fretted dreadfully ever since he’d … acquired her, about what the angel might say when they met up again.

She didn’t know too much about anything, but as far as she could make out, they hadn’t seen each other in a very long time, and before they had last parted ways there had been some form of disagreement.

Demons and angels are frightfully complicated, is what the Bentley gleans from everything. Bad at apologising too, it seems.

Then one night, Crowley had come racing down the stairs and out of the flats to their Mayfair parking spot and all but torn her door off in his haste to get in and drive off.

“Ssssatan Below, angel, the ssssscrapes you get yourssssssself into when I’m not looking!” Crowley was seething as they raced along streets made unnaturally dark by the Blackout. It rarely happened, but the Bentley had heard Crowley start to hiss through his speech before; it always meant that he was only barely holding himself together, and her worry only revved further up.

The Bentley loved to go fast, as any proper motorcar ought to, but even she thought that all this haste was a little excessive for her peace of motor.

_What’s the race?_ She asks, both herself and her demon, _The angel will still be there when we arrive won’t he? He’s managed on his own for as long as you have…_

There’s no answer from Crowley, of course. He’s far too busy swearing under his breath and moving cars, people, buildings helpfully out of her way, while trying to coax her wheels that little bit faster.

_Speed demon._

They screeched to a halt in possibly the last place the Bentley would ever have expected: a church.

Now, the Bentley might not know very much about angels, but she certainly knew plenty about demons by now, and one of the things she was most certainly aware of was that her demon was _not_ going to walk into that place! She stuck her doors shut immediately, hoping Crowley’s moment of madness might pass quickly.

“Damnit, Bentley, if you don’t let me open this door _right now_ I ssssssswear I’ll melt you into ssssssscrap and sssssssell you to the rag-and-bone men!” Crowley snarled.

_No!_ She whimpers, _you can’t go in there!_ _You’ll be hurt!_

Crowley tugs again and bared his teeth at her dashboard even further. “Wassssss I not making myssssself ssssssufficiently clear, hmmmm?”

The Bentley gives in. She’s Crowley’s car, after all. She can only do so much.

_You’d better come back to me, demon. You hear me? You come back out of that place, or … or you’ll be sorry!_

There’s no reason for her to give in gracefully. No one can make her.

Crowley walks into the church and all the Bentley can do is sit outside on a darkened street and worry. All around her are sirens and search-lights and then high above everything come the tell-tale droning of the bombers. The Bentley hates them so much, even though Crowley had been ever so clear that he’d never allow her to be hit by so much as flying shrapnel.

Cars do not, generally speaking, know very much about nightmares, but the moment when she catches sight of the descending bomb from the corner of one wing-mirror will forever be the image she thinks of whenever the word is mentioned to her. There is nothing she can do; she’s just a car.

All she can do is watch, watch as the bomb comes crashing down through the roof of the blasted church, and watch as the whole structure comes apart at the seams, in a tumbling pile of rubble and dust.

And her demon was right in the middle of all of it!

And then…

The moon comes out, just as the dust clears and the Bentley can see the smouldering rubble… and standing safely in a clear patch of ground, her demon was safe. Safe and talking to another being, like him but not like him at all. _Ah, so this is the angel?_

The angel, standing out in sharp contrast to the dark ruin in those light colours, clutched his hat close and shifted awkwardly around on his feet, watching Crowley finish cleaning his glasses.

“That was very kind of you.”

The Bentley approved. Crowley _was _kind, it was good to see another recognise this fact.

“Shut up.” Crowley shot back, but he looked pleased all the same.

Then the angel remembered the books he had forgotten, and Crowley got to finish off this strange grand gesture that the Bentley could easily recognise this whole nightmare for by producing them for his angel like a magic trick.

“Lift home?” Her dear, obvious demon asked in a nonchalant tone, putting a bit of extra sway into his swagger as he walked towards her.

The angel pauses for a long moment, clutching his books and staring after Crowley with a dazed expression of … the Bentley wasn’t sure, but it seemed as if the angel was coming to some earth-shattering realisation.

Sadly, her demon was not a patient creature.

Crowley sat in her front seat and gripped her steering wheel so tightly the leather squeaked.

“C’mon, _c’mon_, angel! Please just get in the car? Please? I’m sorry, alright?”

_He’s not angry with you, calm down._ The Bentley tsks, not that Crowley ever hears her, the poor deaf creature. _Just give him a moment, honestly._

Crowley taps his fingers some more, clearly debating just giving up on his grand gesture and disappearing into the night.

_Don’t you bloody dare, you pillock_. The Bentley grumbles, and freezes up her whole engine for a moment just in case Crowley tries to start her up. _I did not go through all this revving tonight for you to understeer at the last minute._

The angel finally moves, walking towards the Bentley with renewed purpose before pausing awkwardly by the passenger door. Crowley all but throws himself through the side window in his rush to open the door for him.

“Oh, thank you.” The angel says, so polite.

The Bentley approves; she loves her demon, of course she does, but people in general these days are far less polite than they used to be, she’s sure.

The angel has also clearly known Crowley for far too long though, because the next thing he says is tinged with poorly hidden scepticism. “You … bought… a car? I see?”

Crowley shrugs, grinning. “I acquired her, yes.”

“Hmmm…” The angel is smiling too, fond and wistful. “Wily old serpent.”

And there and then both demon and Bentley know that all is forgiven. The evening was worth it, then…

**1\. Curiosity**

The angel comes to visit her not long after, all alone in the middle of the night. The Bentley’s a little surprised to see him, if she’s honest with herself, but she’s also rather glad too.

The ride to the strange thing – the Bookshop, the angel had called it and the Bentley had heard the capital letters there as clearly as she could with her own name – where the angel parked, had been filled with words and nothing of real meaning. The reunion had been too fresh, it seemed, too filled with the unspoken to try to broach the gaps in one ride. So they had chatted lightly about the new books Aziraphale had bought, the new furniture he wasn’t at all convinced about, Crowley’s difficulty in keeping a regular parking space from being bombed.

All of which had nicely filled the silence and served beautifully to calm and relax Crowley, which the Bentley appreciated very much indeed. _[1]_ But none of it _told_ her anything!

She wanted to _know_. To know what the angel who had so thoroughly occupied Crowley’s thoughts was like. What he thought about her demon. Whether he knew that her demon thought so much about him?

She wanted to know what they had fought so hard over, and what he had thought when Crowley had been sleeping. Had he missed him? Had he been in danger inside that church? He must have, Crowley wouldn’t had driven so fast if not, surely? But if so, how? How were angels to be in danger inside churches? Wasn’t that where they were strongest? There was so much about angels that the Bentley didn’t know, and she felt the absence of that knowledge very badly. She knew all sorts about her demon and almost nothing about how his angel worked. This was a serious lapse, she felt…

And of course there were all the little things she didn’t know either. How had an angel and a demon even met each other? When had they met? How and why had they become friends? Crowley wasn’t much for talking while he drove her around, and of course usually she didn’t mind – the road was quite exciting enough as it was – but faced with such an interesting unknown…

Well, you can’t blame a car for her curiosity, can you?

“Why you?” he wonders aloud. “What was it about you that drew him in so?”

Ah. So the Bentley wasn’t the only one who was curious. Though of course, she had already gathered from their earlier conversation that the Bentley had heard infinitely more about the angel then Aziraphale had heard and her.

So typical of Crowley, somehow…

Well, that’s all perfectly fine; she and the angel can get to know each other now, at their own leisure, the old-fashioned way. _[2]_ Much more civilized, after all.

Aziraphale rubs the backs of his fingers over her seats, her woodwork, her gear stick and even the inside of her windows. Curious angel, curious fingers, questing for answers somehow as if they could be read through his skin. She wondered, idly, what he was picking up.

In turn the Bentley reached out all the senses she could gather to feel the angel back. He felt very different to Crowley’s slim, sleek digits; calluses in his skin that are clearly very old, but so worn in now that there’s no softening them up and losing them. His sheen is different too, all lightning-crackle and steel to contrast with Crowley’s warm shadows and quick-silver flexibility. And yet…

And yet there is so much about them which is similar, once the Bentley takes a moment to look a little bit deeper. A strange warm glow about them both which reminds her of gas street-lamps and golden misted spring mornings when the roads are just foggy enough to be delightfully mysterious but not so much that the uncertain path forwards is entirely concerning.

The Bentley might not know so much as she might like about the strange pair, but she begins to see how they fit together…

The angel withdraws his fingers, looking appreciative and thoughtful.

“Well, you’ve certainly got style, haven’t you, dear?” He muses, betraying a clearly refined sense of good taste, in the Bentley’s opinion. “Perhaps that’s it. He does so like things with style; he invented it, you know?”

The Bentley takes a little bit of a chance and makes a small noise, just a creak of leather and clink of engine, in case he’s listening. Sometimes Crowley likes to have a more active listener when he’s got things to get off his bonnet. Sometimes he doesn’t and unexpected noises are met by growls about malfunctioning engines and the horrors of the MOT he will happily subject her to. She loves her demon, but sometimes he’s an unreasonable bastard…

The angel brightens right up like a fog light! The Bentley has never had such an eager conversationalist before. The Bentley understands that – much like her demon – the angel is not a human and as such has very different ideas about what might constitute a proper conversation-partner. That what he might consider as a ‘person’ does not necessitate lungs or a beating heart.

And yet his eagerness to have a listening ear, his joy at hearing her respond to him at all, even if he might think it a figment of his own late-night imagination… How lonely has Aziraphale been all these years that Crowley had slept and hovered and refused to seek him out? To know that someone is listening when he talks?

She realises, sudden and sharp like braking, that she _likes _this angel. Crowley ought to keep him better, she thinks. Keep him around much more, take him out places. With her. Crowley should absolutely take the angel to lots and lots of places. Places he can drive to. In her. So that _she_ can share him too.

She’d like that.

“Oh yes, he’s a very inventive soul, is our Crowley. Got a great many ideas, you know.”

Ah, and the angel actually sounds _proud_ when he says it. Which the Bentley approves of mightily, of course she does; she’s dreadfully proud of her demon too, even if she doesn’t entirely understand what he does.

She chirps at him a little in encouragement, and Aziraphale absently shakes his head, fluttering his hands vaguely through the air in a strange imitation of the flap of nervous wings._[3]_

“I mean, they’re terribly wicked ones too, and I oughtn’t to encourage him at all in his evil wiles and all that…” Rushed now, almost tripping over his words, he accelerates so fast.

The angel even looks over his shoulder, eyes darting upwards, guilt pouring off him suddenly as if it is a terrible thing for an angel to be proud of his demon. It’s one of those ‘needlessly complicated’ things angels and demons keep doing to themselves, if the Bentley’s any judge at all. _[4]_

Then Aziraphale leans forwards a little and a glimmer of mischief shines in his eyes, all delighted joy and just a touch of wickedness in the corners. _Oh, _thinks the Bentley suddenly caught, _so this is what caught Crowley’s eyes about you, isn’t it? That spark right there… Well, we’ll have to do our best to keep it, won’t we?_

Aziraphale whispers conspiratorially to her, as if afraid that someone might hear him, voice extra low. Not that she’d _ever_ betray the trust he’s showing in her to anyone, even their beloved Crowley._[5]_ “But you won’t tell him that I admire his mind so, will you? It’ll be _our_ secret.”

Of course it’s their secret. Aziraphale is her demon’s angel after all. And he’s sweet. She likes him.

Aziraphale might be sparkling a little around the edges with mischief, but he’s still tense too, an ingrained reaction perhaps? Second thoughts about this whole conversation seem to have dawned upon him, and he looks ready to bolt or come apart at his joints.

Locking her doors to keep him in here would probably be inappropriate…

The Bentley gently, and quietly as she can, sets her heaters on, encouraging the angel to relax a bit more, unwind and feel (hopefully) comfortable enough to keep talking to her. It’s as good a parking space as any, the Bentley’s sure, but it gets a little dark and a little lonely for her sometimes, and she’s not always comfortable in nudging Crowley out of sleep for a drive. Having an angelic visitor seems like a rather grand idea.

Slowly, gradually enough that he maybe hasn’t noticed, Aziraphale relaxes, settling back in to her comfortable leather. She chirps her dashboard at him, hoping to soothe. The Bentley has never wished to be anything other than the stylish machine of pure class that she is, but right now she would give a lot to be able to comfort him properly. Her efforts must work though, because Aziraphale leans forwards and pats her gently, and _crucially_ … he begins to talk…

Aziraphale rambles on all through the night. His stories rarely follow a strict sense of chronology, and they reference a great many things that the Bentley has no context for at all, but that is largely irrelevant. The important thing, the really_ vital_ thing that she hears throughout them all, is the pair of dear ethereal (occult) beings themselves. All down the ages, the affections and the frustrations and the joys and the comforts that weave in and out, through each other’s lives before spinning away like the patterns in the angel’s bow-tie. The Bentley had known from the start that her demon had been friends with his angel but she hadn’t realised how long and strong the bond grew, nor how two-sided it was.

She learns about shared meals and daring rescues – though none of them as daring as that first one that she was involved in _[6]_ – about plays attended and saved, and sorrows only survived through the support of a friend’s solidarity. The Bentley has always known that the angel and her demon are connected, but it is nice to more fully understand why this has to be so. Somewhere, in the back of her boot, the Bentley has a moment of terrible sorrow that Aziraphale has done without that constant thread of companionship which seems to have spanned so much of his life.

But it was only a short break in the grand scheme of things, she reassures herself, and they have had so much time together and still have so much more to come. There’s no need to get too revved up about it.

Somewhere during the Bentley’s musing, the angel has fallen oddly silent, apparently thinking of something entirely different to his audience. He frowns as he looks around, takes her in again.

“You’re a little old, my dear,”

Oh, but that is simply _rude_! She hisses a harsh note in leather creaks and the quiet rumble of an engine growl. Not to mention _uncalled for_! The Bentley might not be quite so swift and flashy as some of those younger models she’s seen running around these days, but she has style and power and solidity that those young scamps could never dream of!

Aziraphale pats her dashboard a little, conciliatory and affectionate and something in the Bentley’s engine settles back down, appeased.

“But then again you’re nowhere near as old as we two are. Goodness, not by a long shot! And do you know? I do believe that you care for him as much as you are able to, which is no small thing, not to me. Long may you continue to do so…”

Aziraphale’s face looks wistful suddenly, and a little sad. Not for himself - that’s quite clear to the Bentley – but for Crowley, she suspects, before inevitably being proven right. “You and I, dear, we might well be the only two old things he has in his life right now. Best that we stick together, don’t you think?”

Of course.

As if the Bentley would ever have allowed anything else! Still, it is … nice… to know that there is a second person out there in London who cares for Crowley as much as she does. Who could never bear to let him go…

“Thank you for taking care of me, my dear.” He says, patting the Bentley’s roof gently. “This has been a most enjoyable evening for me. I do hope that I haven’t bored you, but I really must get going or the Bookshop will miss me quite terribly! Until next time, my dear.”

_[1]_ _It wasn’t a major problem, but whenever Crowley got too stressed he had a dreadful habit of gripped her steering wheel too tight. It was dreadfully uncomfortable…_

_[2] Somewhere down the echoing waves of time and space, the haunting strains of a song not-yet-written slide through the static of the radio the Bentley has not yet installed. It happens to her now and again, but although cars do not have a concept of faith, tied as it is to imagination which is for people, they do have certainty, and she is very, very certain that one day she will hear those songs in their truest forms._

_[3] Not that the Bentley would ever allow the angel to find out that she thought of him as a pigeon. Even if he does resemble one to her, all white downy feathers, she thinks, and his general puckishness (according to Crowley) and his … softness. And the cooing, if this evening’s performance is anything to go by. So much cooing…_

_[4] And she is._

_[5] Much to the demon’s future frustration. Not that Crowley knows this yet, but this, this moment right here, this is where so many hours of vexation and torment start. Right here, right now, while he’s deciding between curling back up in his nice warm bed and letting his feet heal, or going downstairs to find out what sort of angelic mischief Aziraphale is getting up to with his car._

_[6] Which is only right and proper, as the Bentley is indeed the most inherently stylish and dramatic part of their garage, after all!_

**2\. Fear**

At first it’s every night. Then it’s every _other_ night. Then it’s just once a week. But for months and months and months it continues, in the small hours of the night just before a new dawn breaks.

The door to the backseat opens and their angel tumbles inside her, frantic and shaking and curls up in the footwell as small as he possibly can. _[7]_

And every time it is the same litany, over and over: _Is he safe? Is he still safe? Is he still here?_

Aziraphale will likely never know it, but it is during the nights like these that he becomes her angel as well as her demon’s.

It isn’t entirely logical, of course. Under normal circumstances, learning that the angel had given her Crowley something to be used to end his own life would make her… furious. People like to say that machines are emotionless, but every driver knows that cars can feel rage; it comes from the roads after all.

So the Bentley ought to be fuming at Aziraphale and his frequent little visits and his desperate pleas and his far too-late apologies…

But she isn’t.

Because their angel worries about Crowley more than _she_ does. He’s known him longer, she supposes. He’s so worried that he’s _sick_ with it. Worried about what Crowley was willing to risk to get the strange thing that was inside that flask. Worried about why he’d asked for it in the first place. Worried about how long he’d wanted it.

And he had been worried enough – and _honest_ enough too, when she thinks of it – to come to her. So they can both worry together. No point in being alone with one’s fears, is there?

“I’ve done something terrible, old girl.” He’d said that first night, after he’d refused Crowley’s offer to be dropped off anywhere. _[8]_ “I … Well, I do hope that you can forgive me, but I just _couldn’t_ have him putting himself in even greater danger like that.”

Besides, it isn’t as if the Bentley’s not just as responsible for this as Aziraphale.

Had the angel not been such a frequent visitor. Had she not been a demon’s car (and an extremely attentive demon at that). Had she not been driven around _London_, that strange mixture of all things natural and not in the world, for so many years now…

The Bentley’s not a slow car, literally or figuratively. She’d known that her demon was getting up to something untoward in his copious spare time. She’d known by the shifty way he’d kept glancing down the street leading to Aziraphale’s Bookshop before carefully and deliberately steering away from it, that he didn’t want Aziraphale to know about his scheme. She’d known when she listened to the last questions and dregs of conversations as Crowley left pubs and clubs with … interesting … people, that whatever this was all about, Aziraphale needed to know about it as soon as he could.

And then she’d heard that word. _Church._

_No. Not again, never again!_

So she’d done the best thing she could think of, and she’d stretched her senses, every single trick she’d learned from either being, and she’d found that little corner of Soho where her very own guardian angel was nestled… and she’d nudged and nudged him until he listened. Until his ears pricked up to those same snatches of conversations, and he became as worried as she.

A church. A heist. A _scheme_ that an angel had not been a party to…

They both loved their wretched demon so much, but he could be dreadfully, dangerously reckless… and it was up to them both to keep him as safe as they possibly could.

Had the Bentley been less concerned about the whole stupid plot, she might have felt a little bit guilty during the strange little encounter inside her, so important and so horribly dangerous. They’d both been so tense in a way that the Bentley’s beautifully plush and sleek leather seats had certainly not been designed for. And their angel had been…

He’d been so stoic, so sad. He’d been _heartbroken_ handing that flask over and even if the Bentley didn’t know until later that evening what had been in it, she’d known that the angel would rather have done anything else than give Crowley what he’d wanted.

It isn’t as if the Bentley has never been in that position herself, after all.

“I’m so sorry, dear girl.” Aziraphale whispered to her having poured the whole sorry mess out in her back seat. “I couldn’t bear it if he left – _really _left, I mean, not fell asleep for a few decades. _[9] _But I… Things just get so messy once you start pulling humans into your plans, you know? They do such a good job of noticing nothing, not even the most obvious things at times, for ages and ages and then just when you think you’re in the clear, they notice the one thing they simply mustn’t and all of a sudden everything’s on fire!” _[10]_

“So you do see, don’t you? Oh but I do wish he’d just talk to me… or to _you_, dear, you’re a very good listener, if I do say so myself.”

Sometimes – times when it’s _not_ an emergency - the Bentley isn’t very convinced that their angel hears her any better than Crowley does. But he’s still so terribly devoid of someone to talk to properly, it seems, and so he will take her slightest ticks and twitches as full responses. Which they _are_, of course they are. But she really needs to get better at finding a way to assure him that she really is paying him the attention he craves…

Aziraphale seems to be pondering some new, awful, thing.

“If he left us like that…” He whispers to the Bentley, so quiet that it’s like he can’t actually bear saying the words himself and can’t bear for her to listen to them either. But they have known each other for long enough now to know that they can plough through anything together. “If he did… Would you want me to take care of you, my dear? Or… would you want for me to send you after him?”

The Bentley knew that she wouldn’t like whatever her angel was going to say, but she is still surprised by her initial horror. She squeaks her springs, and her body gives a dreadful shiver.

_He wouldn’t! _She cries. _He’d never leave us alone without him!_

But… But Crowley was so determined to get his hands on the only thing in the world that would take him out of that world forever. Determined enough to plot with humans and hide from his angel to get it…

And _why?_ Why had he wanted such a thing so badly? Why wouldn’t he talk to them?

Oh, but Crowley would never leave them behind though, she realises. He’d never be able to stand the idea that they might Get Up To Things without him. The suspense would kill him!

_Don’t worry so much, angel,_ she tries to project as hard as she can, _he’ll be fine. He’d be terrified you’d find trouble without him, after all!_

Aziraphale must pick some part of this up, because a small smile tugs at his lips and his eyes lighten a little.

“Oh, I hope that he will be alright too, my dear. But … I should like you to know that I will … I will support you however you would like best. It is only fair after all; it will have been my fault that he had – well, that he had such an option. Best to take responsibility for the consequences, don’t you think?”

It is an awful thing to contemplate, but Aziraphale has done her the decency of asking properly, and she will do him the courtesy of thinking it through. She’s been Crowley’s car now for so long, for decades and decades, and she wonders, now that her angel has asked her, would she be able to go on without him? Would she even _want_ to?

After all, without Crowley, who would take her out driving at the proper speeds? Who would trip pedestrians out of her way and turn potential car-thieves into small unpleasant creatures to be chased through the sewers? Who would take her to the park and the Ritz and countless other scenic locations and let her watch fondly while he poked and prodded his angel into swiping at him and letting some of that beloved cranky bastard shine through?

Who would see Aziraphale working himself into a proper fret and soothe his feathers? Who would tempt him into all the little things he likes best?

Who, indeed, would look after Aziraphale, if Crowley couldn’t?

It was madness to think of such a world, unfathomable to her, and she refused to contemplate such an unnatural prospect.

The Bentley cannot really sigh, but she shifts and creaks at him with brisk fondness. That will be quite enough of this foolishness, _thank you!_

_Nonsense, angel. If I lost him, which I’m quite sure would never happen, dear creature that he is, but if I did through some awful misadventure, I’d just come to you instead! No sense in you losing both of us, is there, you dear, silly old angel?_

Aziraphale scrubs shaking hands against his face and she kindly does her best to pretend not to notice the tears he’s wiping away.

“No, no, you’re quite right. There’s nothing to worry about, is there? He’s fine, and one day he’ll find out about all this fretting and fussing I’ve been doing and find the whole thing utterly hilarious, won’t he? You’re quite right, my dear. I ought to spend less time borrowing future trouble, oughtn’t I?”

Aziraphale takes a deep breath, straightens his posture, his waistcoat and his legs, before settling back much more consciously into the attitude of a casual conversation. The Bentley breathes a little easier, now that the worst of the night’s conversation has passed.

“Did you enjoy that little jaunt he took you on to Leicester, dear? Such a dreadfully long way, I know, and he wouldn’t even _hint_ to me what it was for. Oh, obviously some temptation or other, but really the _secrecy _he insisted on! I suppose at the speeds he takes you up to, it didn’t take all that long at all though, did it? I do hope you didn’t run into so much rain as we had down here…”

_[7] At first she’d been worried that Aziraphale might not fit – the Bentley was designed and built for comfort after all – and she’d naturally expanded herself a little on the inside to give him more space. Entirely out of his motor and skidding badly on the black ice of fear, the poor angel had whined and shivered and looked smaller and smaller until she’d relaxed herself back and squeezed him close. Humans held each other for comfort, the Bentley remembered with a flash, they wrapped their loved ones up and cradled them close. The Bentley has no arms, no limbs of any kind, but with a warmth that has nothing to do with her spark plug, she understands that she too can give a dear friend some comfort when needed too…_

_[8] As if they weren’t sitting in Soho already, honestly, Crowley! As if he could be any more painfully transparent! Why hadn’t he just asked to angel to come back to the flat with him? That would at least have given him an excuse to take their angel for a spin all together. This whole thing would have gone much better if the Bentley was in charge, that’s for sure…_

_[9] Not that the Bentley would blame him, but something in Aziraphale’s tone as he said the words ‘just fell asleep’ suggested that while all had been forgiven immediately on Crowley’s return, the angel would be a long time in forgetting that he had been abandoned in the manner he had been. The Bentley couldn’t stand to imagine such a feeling, and she very much hoped that the coming days were not the prelude to her finding out._

_[10] This sounded like a judgement springing from personal experience. It is._

**3\. Pain**

The angel comes stumbling around the corner, clutching at his chest and bleeding all over his nice light clothes. The Bentley’s normally even more picky about her interior than Crowley is, but in this moment she doesn’t even think about it.

If the angel were more aware of his surroundings and less focussed on his pain, he might have questioned why the door to the Bentley’s backseats opened before he’d touched the handle. Then again, perhaps he wouldn’t have wondered at all. One of the loveliest things about their angel is how accepting he is of her developing personality.

_Really, angel? This is the third time this week!_

It’s far too much, all this horrible business, it really is.

The first time this happened, the Bentley really and truly confirmed whatever suspicions Aziraphale might have held about her sentience.

Her poor wounded angel had limped around the corner, staggering a little when his legs threatened to give out on him. But he had not come alone. On London’s streets, there are always those who look for the weakest targets, and Aziraphale in the sorry state he had managed to get himself into - had doubtless presented a very weak-looking target indeed.

One of the men grabbed the angel’s elbow as he approached her end of the car park, spinning him around and pulling his fist back to strike. The Bentley’s engine had roared to life before she’d had a second to think about it, starting forwards in a squeal of tires to ride her angel’s assailant down with _extreme _prejudice.

Startled, they looked up and scattered, but _not nearly fast enough_.

“Bentley!” Aziraphale’s stern voice gave her pause, and she turned her mirrors back to see her angel draw himself up once more, back straight and face stern. To look at him, you wouldn’t think at all that he’d been limping only moments earlier. You wouldn’t think him wounded and in terrible pain. “Stop that at _once!_ Really, old girl, there’s no call for that kind of thing, is there?”

_That’s what you think._ She growled, mutinous. _Only one of us here is an angel, you soft old dear, and it isn’t me!_

“No, old girl, I really must insist.” Aziraphale adjusted his glasses, and eyed her over their rims. “Let them go on their way, there’s a dear.”

There’s something … different … about the angel tonight, the Bentley realises, and she stares at him as if she has never laid lights on him before….

She’d known, of course she’d known, that Aziraphale had been a warrior once, back in Heaven. _[11]_ That he had led angels into battle and that he had been, if not enthusiastic about it, extremely good at it. For some reason, she had rather regrettably neglected to think about what such a thing might mean, until faced with the reality.

Aziraphale, bruised and bloodied though he may be, stood there in that car park, half in shadow and halfway in light and he stood there with all the solidity and gravitas of a mountain range’s glacier, immovable and unstoppable all at once. Her engine wound itself down, unwilling, to let the creatures escape her wrath but very sure that the decision here was not her own.

The angel’s gaze lightened a fraction at her acquiescence before he flicked a glance at the little gathering and raised one pointed eyebrow.

The humans, thugs though they may be, were not nearly foolish enough not to know a cue for their own escape when they saw it. They ran, and they did not look back.

_They would have hurt you! Someone did hurt you! How could you just let them -?_

“Really, my dear old thing…” Aziraphale sighed, looking very patient and very old in the patchy light of the street lamps. _[12]_ “It’s hardly anything to me, and it would have been so much worse for the young men at the… Well, best not to think about it all, such a dreadful state of affairs all round. Now, would you mind awfully if I, ah, Took Sanctuary, my dear? I can go back to the Bookshop if it’s too much bother, but you were rather closer so I had thought to…?”

He trails off in a hopeful sort of way, and the Bentley once more regrets that she cannot huff and roll her headlights the way she wishes to.

_You are so lucky that I’m patient, angel, honestly. You wait until Crowley hears about this. You think I’m_ _over-reacting?_

Aziraphale, wretch and angel that he is, only tuts at her fondly as he climbs onto her backseats with more grim determination than grace. _[13]_

“Oh, don’t you grumble at me so! And no sneaky running off to tell Crowley either. This is well within my angelic duties, I’ll have you know, and he’s not to interfere with those if he knows what’s good for him! I’m not a jot above withholding the _Domaine de la Romanée-Conti_ if he gets at all uppity, you know.”

And this? This is why those two wretched creatures deserve each other, she thinks disgustedly, settling herself in for a long and horrible night. They’re both as bad as each other and she shall develop… she’ll develop _scratches_ in her paintwork from all this worrying, just see if she doesn’t!

*

“Dreadfully sorry about this, old girl,” he mutters to her, this most recent and still dreadful evening, sliding into her interior as she desperately tries to make herself as warm and comfortable as she can. “Never fear, I shan’t leave any blood in your upholstery once I’ve put everything to rights.”

_I don’t bloody care about the seats, will you just stop getting hurt already?!_ She hisses her springs at him, helpless and irritable with it.

The angel, wretched warrior that he is, just pats her absently and downplays the whole awful situation like she can’t hear his laboured breathing and isn’t going to fret herself raged about that later.

“There, there, my dear. Just a mistake on my part, silly of me I know. Just need a moment to collect myself and a safe spot and I’ll be healed in a jiffy. And you’re quite one of the safest spots I know, aren’t you, my dear?”

_Flattery will get you nowhere, angel._

She will not be soothed by his pretty words. Her angel is panting with pain and dabbing at where his skin has broken from the force of the blows levelled against him. He will not distract her the way he did those fools Upstairs. Honestly, it’s a wonder that she lets him out of her sight at all…

Aziraphale clearly senses this, because he returns his attention back to its proper place: taking care of himself for once. Belatedly.

_Angels…_

“Dreadful mess they’ve made of me, isn’t it? You know, I’ve had this shirt for longer than Crowley’s had _you_, my dear. And now look at it! I’ll never get it clean, I just know it…”

_Oh, for Ford’s sake! Really, angel?! The slicking shirt?_

The Bentley turns her lights up to the stars and refuses to sink to the level she wishes to and physically _shake_ the angel until some vague degree of good sense forces itself inside him.

Aziraphale evidently senses how utterly unimpressed she is in his ridiculous chatter because he gets on properly with the business of healing his injuries with the brisk efficiency she likes to see.

Then he pauses, and she braces herself for the inevitable Bad Idea that is _sure_ to follow. Really, however has Crowley managed with this for 5000 years? It’s a wonder her demon has ever let the angel out of his sight for a _moment!_

_What is it now?_

“You know, while I have all this blood around the place…”

That speculative tone… Nothing good ever comes of that tone! _[14]_

_Oh no… whatever it is, I forbid you from thinking this … damage is acceptable, you foolish flurry of feathers! You will not think that this is useful! Your pain is never useful!_

The angel, apparently, disagrees. Because of course he does. They’ve had this conversation before.

The Bentley’s not an angel, of course, and she doesn’t pretend to understand anything about sacrifice and all those other things that Aziraphale is far too naturally inclined to and must be held back from through copious demonic wiles and general nudging towards wanting things for himself, like he’s worth a bit of selfishness. Left to himself, Aziraphale is far too inclined to think of all the ways he can help others, no matter the cost to himself, and she has a quite dreadful feeling that this is going to be one of those times, and her without her back-up demon to stop him…

_Stop it, whatever it is… Angel, I’m warning you!_

“I wonder if you’d like for me to draw a few runes on you, my dear? Just for added protection and the like. Best to give you a little more than Crowley’s sense of the worth inherent in his own personal safety, should it come down to it, wouldn’t you say?”

_Will it keep you safe too, you causer of all of my worries?_

The grumble is instinctive, the rest of her motor is occupied with giving the notion so serious thought.

Would it keep the angel safer too? There is likely to be great strength in the blood of an angel, especially one so good as Aziraphale… and of course, while in the short term draining more strength from her angel is a high price to pay, if it will encourage the dedicated delinquent to put his feet up for a bit and actually _get some rest…_

The Bentley pauses for a moment in her tirade against foolish angels and their stupid need to take care of everyone _but_ themselves, like they are expendable and not irreplaceable features of other people’s lives…

While she had total faith in the wards that Crowley had placed within her over the years - not to mention faith in her own personal abilities to keep herself and all within her safe too – perhaps allowing Aziraphale to tinker around would be a good idea? Since it seemed that the angel had entirely missed her existing wards_ [15]_ perhaps he would be less careful about setting his own, too? And if a certain demon just _happened_ to notice the additions… and if he just _happened_ to sense the blood they were drawn in… and if he just _happened_ to drive by the Bookshop while he was upset about it…

Well…

The Bentley could not be blamed if Crowley figured this whole awful pattern of events out for himself, now, could she?

_Oh, alright then… But no turning this into a habit, you hear me?_

The angel made a very unangelic snorting noise as he reached out with bloodied fingers and started to trace shapes and sigils into her doors and floor. As he closes the last loop, the Bentley feels a great _whomph_ of power run through her, before all traces of the wards sink deep down inside her, past where Crowley would think to look unless he had good cause.

_Damn. Still, he’ll get the benefit at least, I suppose, and now you, young wretch, will lie down properly until that celestial energy of yours heals that corporation a bit more. Then you can take yourself off home and actually get some rest for once. Proper rest now, mind. None of this, ‘I’ll have a cup of tea and head out again’ nonsense!_

Aziraphale, despite her concerns that he doesn’t really hear her, does stretch himself out along the back seat, and the Bentley increases her heat a little more in a vain attempt to soothe him into a doze. Perhaps if he can be in a meditative state, he’ll still be here when Crowley comes downstairs? He’s certainly not eager to leave her confines either. Angels heal better when surrounded by love, and the Bentley is both steeped in Crowley’s love (loath though her darling demon is to admit it) and fully capable of feeling love in her own right. Their angel deserved all the care she could give him, and if all she could do was offer shelter, then it would be shelter for his soul as well as his poor battered corporation. Besides, it soothes her as well, to keep him close to her where she can see him and know that he is safe.

But eventually the sky lightens, and the noise of London begins to pick up once more. Despite her best efforts, Aziraphale stirs from his torpor before the sun is properly over the horizon and far too many hours before her demon would wake _[16]_, blinking and starting to stretch before he pulls something that still hurts and thinks better of it.

“Just have to take it a little more easy than usual for a few days, won’t I, old girl?” He mutters to her, smiling sheepishly.

_It’s like you get smarter the longer I watch you, angel. _Her seats shift in a manner which, in a human, might be considered a haughty sniff. Not that the Bentley is haughty at all. She’s a lady, after all.

Aziraphale hums, eyeing up the morning and finishing the last of whatever healing he can manage the quick way.

“Perfectly good excuse not to open the bookshop is how I see it. Very reasonable. And there now, _you’ve_ got some nice extra features – that _is_ what they all them, isn’t it, dear? – so everyone’s won themselves a little something this night.”

_Oh, no, you don’t, angel! _The Bentley is determined that he will rest properly in as comfortable a spot as she can manage for as long as he needs it. If he’s still wincing, he still needs the rest. She stubbornly locks her doors. _Those newer models have the right idea with those child-safety locks on the back doors! Now if only locked doors deter dear, stubborn angels the way they do overly determined toddler! _

To her chagrin, Aziraphale actually miracles himself outside. Of course, he immediately needs to lean on her roof to catch his breath, but he’s saying his goodbyes as he straightens with a generally well-hidden wince.

_You really do need a minder, don’t you? _The Bentley resignedly sighs at her dear, impossible angel. _Very well, I’ll make do with Plan B._

She makes a note to pointedly drive Crowley past the Bookshop a few times this week; give the angel a bit of company that _won’t_ hurt him for a change. Besides, Crowley’s started to develop that twitch about him, like he’s got too much energy to store all inside his skin and it’s fizzling up and out of control. It’s always best to throw him into his angel’s company when he gets like that, otherwise he starts tinkering around with humanity and while sometimes this leads to interesting amusements _[17]_, other times it all goes rather better – from a demonic perspective – than he expected and she has to deal with a chagrined and penitent demon moping around.

The most successful Plan B therefore requires that she usher their angel off to the Bookshop.

_Just go, angel. Get some rest. Stop getting into those fights of yours, if you’d be so kind?_

It’s unlikely to end, really. She knows that perfectly well. Aziraphale won’t stop trying to help until the humans have got their collective act together. But she feels better saying it, and she hopes very much that her angel can hear the care for his well-being behind it.

He deserves to have someone tell him that he matters, after all… _[18]_

_[11] Just as she had known, though this time without actually being told, that Crowley had undoubtedly not been such a fighter. He was a cunning, clever, crafty old thing, her demon, but a soldier? No… She sometimes wondered what it was that Crowley had been up to in that war they both very carefully Did Not Speak Of. But it would be many years indeed before she found out…_

_[12] Despite knowing in the abstract that he was old, it was hard for the Bentley to truly believe that he was, as youthfully enthusiastic as he usually managed to be about humanity’s cleverness._

_[13] Pretty words aside, the Bentley is just as aware as the angel likely is that he’s largely here because he has neither the strength nor the power needed to get himself back home on his own right now. Angels, or at least this one, tends to be weaker around cruelty and stronger around love. A rather drunken ramble had given the Bentley that insight and she had never been prouder to have such proof of Crowley’s love for her (and their shared angel) and the Good it could accomplish. _

_[14] Just a few examples of absolute disasters foreshadowed by Aziraphale’s speculative tone have included Crowley being talked into ice-skating [14.1], attending a re-screening of _The Adventures of Robin Hood_ [12.2] since Crowley had missed its release in 1938, and joining the celebrations for the renaming of Shakespeare’s Memorial Theatre into the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. [14.3]_

_[14.1] Crowley doesn’t know what to do with his limbs on solid, dry ground, adding skates into the mix was only ever going to be a disaster._

_[14.2] Crowley had grumbled about soppiness going in and had come out positively aglow with the desire to take fencing back up. Aziraphale, who had tried to teach Crowley on three separate occasions how to wield a sword without nearly chopping off his own arms, and had each time solemnly remembered why he had stood as Crowley’s champion throughout the entire Middle Ages, thoroughly distracted his companion by seeing to it that Soho got a new jazz club with Ronnie Scott. Aziraphale adores jazz, while Crowley feels that, as a demon, he will surely cultivate a taste for the devil’s music [14.4] any day now…_

_[14.3] Aziraphale had apparently forgotten about Crowley’s deep aversion to the playwright’s ‘gloomy ones’ and the demon had retaliated the following year by seeing to the opening of the first legal casino in Brighton (where else?)._

_[14.4] This is an entirely mistaken description, of course. Hell, in general, has next to no musical taste at all despite having managed to secure all of the best composers Downstairs. Mostly this is due to immediate longstanding depression on the part of said composers on arrival, but Satan’s own musical tastes were just as questionable as the Almighty’s. Where She is reported to be deeply fond of _The Sound of Music_, Satan had a horrible affinity for _Carmen_ and was largely responsible for it being overplayed on any station that broadcast opera music. _

_[15] Less ‘missed’ and more ‘would not have dreamed of going looking without express permission’; Aziraphale was very well-mannered as a general rule and poking at other people’s persons is highly inappropriate, after all!_

_[16] The Bentley was all for Sloth and such, and generally she supported all of Crowley’s demonic endeavours, but could he not, just once, have decided on a nice early-morning drive? Just this once? Typical…_

_[17] Just a few of her favourites were traffic lights that malfunctioned to go from red to green in order to allow her – and only her – to go through them, while she grinned and shamelessly revved up all the impatient cars around her, speeding past traffic jams with no one any the wiser as to how she slipped and slid through the gaps in the stationary traffic, generally terrorising the highway maintenance workers, and of course baiting the Hell out of traffic wardens… [17.1]_

_[17.1] This last one might, to Crowley’s chagrin, in fact count as a Good Deed, but let’s not take a vote on it…_

_[18] And let us be honest here; her demon, however much he felt their angel was an important fixture in their garage, was absolutely wretched about actually saying as much out loud, where said angel could hear him. Really, this whole enterprise of a courtship would go at least 70 mph faster if only they left these things in her doors…_

**4\. Relief**

The Bentley recorporates in her regular parking space. It is a significant relief. She’s had a very trying week, she thinks.

There have been strange books in her interior, strange people, strange _demons even! [19]_

Then she remembers.

_NO!_

Where is her demon? He was… she’d got him to that airfield, he’d apparently considered it vitally important that he go to that airfield. _[20]_

What on Earth had happened after that? Where was Crowley? Was he alright? He’d had Aziraphale with him, she thinks back desperately. Yes, the angel had been there; he’d been gone, but then he’d been there. Nothing dreadful could happen to Crowley while Aziraphale was there, could it?

But Aziraphale was not invincible either. They had both of them, demon and car, learned that the hard way. The Bentley was sure that Aziraphale would defend Crowley with his life… but would that have been enough?

Surely, in the light of Her existence, the Bentley had not been brought back to face the world without Crowley and their shared angel?

Then, miraculously, something catches her side-mirrors. And she knows that everything has _worked_.

It’s Crowley. Standing there, in the sun, and looking at her and smiling that little smile of his and she feels shiny and new and glorious under his welcome gaze. He strides over to her, hips swaying the way they do when he’s happy and confident and all is well.

The hand on her door handle lingers, almost a caress.

The Bentley remembers the end of past wars, when men and women came home at last to a land they had left for good reasons, but left all the same. She had stood there next to her demon - who always had a soft heart, not matter how he might grumble - and watched fond embraces and joyous kisses and tears of happiness, while Crowley hid behind his sunglasses and idly kicked pebbles around trying to project coolness made manifest.

This moment, it reminds her of nothing so much as the longed-for and welcome return of a loved one.

Crowley finally stops tracing his fingers across her paintwork, pulls the door open and slides inside of her.

“Hello there, my dear old girl… It’s been, well I can’t tell you how lovely it is to see you again.”

The Bentley’s thoughts stall. Grind to a halt.

This is not Crowley.

This is an imposter.

For a moment she panics, terrified that her wards upon wards have failed her, have burned up and vanished in the inferno which swallowed her whole yesterday, and she is defenceless and without her demon as an imposter wearing his face makes off with her forever…

Then something clicks.

_“… my dear old girl…”_

This is not Crowley, no. But it is not a stranger either.

_Why are you dressed up like a demon, angel?_ She shifts the seats slightly, giving him the little squeak of leather and stuffing that he knows from long hours of secret conversations to indicate her curiosity.

The angel grins, beaming all over the wrong face and reaches a hand out to gesture to his borrowed form and then pats her dashboard comfortingly.

“Oh, why do I look like this, do you mean? Well, that’s a dreadfully long story, old girl, but I assure you that he’s quite alright and it’s all a part of our cunning plan! You see…”

The Bentley listens to Aziraphale’s comforting patter, and bolt by screw she relaxes. She can’t share the highlights of her own experience, but slowly she starts to get a picture of things which she and Crowley hadn’t been present for.

“And then I’m afraid I rather took one too many steps backwards, and I ended up right inside the summoning circle like a complete _fool_! Dreadful business, you know, lost my corporation and everything!”

The Bentley’s oil runs cold at the reminder, but Aziraphale keeps going, cheerful as ever, the ridiculous angel…

“I don’t know for sure what happened next, but there were a lot of lit candles around the circle – part of the whole ritual, you know – and I suppose one of them might have caught some loose paper…”

Aziraphale trails off, shivering now to think of what must have happened to his beloved Bookshop. The Bentley cannot move, frozen solid as she remembers those awful moments.

Pulling up to the Bookshop and seeing the flames engulfing everything. Crowley fighting with the firefighters to force his way inside. Her demon’s screams, angry at first, and worried, before turning to despair and horror as the full realisation dawned upon both of them that whatever had happened to the Bookshop, it had cost them their angel too.

Crowley walking back out alone, a minor relief for the Bentley, concerned as she was that her dear, devoted demon might stubbornly remain inside the inferno until his own corporation burned up, trying to follow Aziraphale the way she had been sure once upon a time that the angel had planned to do for him.

Driving to the nearest dive bar and waiting outside, leaving Crowley to do his own grieving while she made her first tentative start on her own. Their angel had gone - burned up or died beforehand - but he’d gone all the same. The end of the world might still have been hours away, but for the Bentley and her demon, it had already happened.

Aziraphale’s story was still going, but it had developed some suspicious gaps in that way he only ever had when he tripped over his experiences of Heaven in his stories. They didn’t talk about Heaven, the Bentley and the angel. She rather suspected that Aziraphale was worried that the car he’d befriended might run any unknown angel over all on her own if he gave her more than awkward pauses and half-finished thoughts. _[21]_

“Well, and of course then we all met up at the airfield, and I must say, my dear old thing, you _did_ look ever so much as if you’d been in the wars! I shudder to _think_ what you’d both been through, and I do apologise, my dear, for not taking the time to say goodbye to you properly at the time, but you know how these crises go?”

And the Bentley did. She’d understood at the time and she understood now.

Crowley was the romantic of her two dear entities. The one with the eye for grand gestures and pretty words and heartfelt declarations and all that drama. Aziraphale… He’d spoken once or twice of being a warrior, long ago. His eyes had gone all far-off, and his voice became distant, and his whole stance had shifted. Aziraphale was an angel of action, all appearances to the contrary. _[22]_

The Bentley would have expected her demon to say his final goodbyes, no matter what was going on around them.

_“I am having a moment, here! … You were a good car.”_

But she’d gone out knowing that for all his impatience, the angel had cared about her, and would miss her and would comfort Crowley over her loss. But first and foremost, Aziraphale dealt with the problem in front of him. And that was how she’d known, even in her final moments, that her demon, her angel, and all that the pair of them had held dear; they would all be alright.

Because Aziraphale would not countenance anything otherwise.

Aziraphale was still talking, his tone the one he used when he was quietly hoping for Good Things, but not yet certain of success;

“After all, my dear, young Adam did seem ever so thorough in delving into our minds back at the airbase. No time to explain everything, you see, much easier that way. And I can’t imagine that the sad demise of the Bookshop wasn’t right at the top of my mind the whole time… Surely the place will be… well, hope springs eternal, don’t they say? Best to hold onto hope until after Crowley comes back…”

He shifted in her seat then, rolling his shoulders back and taking a preparatory breath as if steeling himself for some strange all-or-nothing combat.

“I’d bring you along, old girl, but neither of us will enjoy me learning to drive all at once, and especially on a day like today. Best not to risk it.”

“Oh look, how miraculous for a taxi to arrive like that, so wonderful.”

The Bentley clicks her dashboard at him, fond and irritated by turns. _You are fooling no one, angel. I can hear the finger-snap thing. Honestly._

Aziraphale grins, a little manic around the edges, but with the shining determination which the Bentley rather suspects drew her demon into his orbit in the first place. The determination that everything was going to go according to his plan or it would Suffer the Consequences. _[23]_

“Well, I do hope that this all goes well, my dear, and that we shall _both _be seeing you quite soon. Tootle pip.”

Aziraphale in his Crowley-disguise climbs back out of the Bentley, closing the door behind him and sauntering over to the waiting cab. The Bentley watched him go, idly wondering exactly how many of those 6000 years the angel had spent staring at Crowley’s hips to get the swagger right on the first day? Then again, she’d also lay good tarmac down on the notion that Crowley’s clasping of Aziraphale’s hands and wide eyes was probably spot on too.

Honestly, her two dear, darling entities… She hoped they’d sort themselves out soon, now that they didn’t have foolish nonsense to distract them.

_[19] Hastur! Honestly, of all the demons, it had to be Hastur! The Bentley is quite convinced that she would never be able to feel clean again had she not been bathed in cleansing fire… [19.1]_

_[19.1] The Bentley grudgingly forgives the young Antichrist for some of his (unwitting) part in the events of the last eleven years for his thoughtfulness in ensuring that she’s reconstituted without any of Hastur’s grime clinging to her. At least the child was raised properly, and understood what was important in this world…_

_[20] Quite a lot of the events of the past week had rather gone over the Bentley’s bonnet, but one she had absolutely decided upon was that she was heartily sick of all things Tadfield and she was never going there ever again. Not even for Crowley. Not even for their shared angel. Never._

_[21] This was, of course, ridiculous. The Bentley would never have granted an angel so swift an end to the misery of their traffic-jam life.[21.1] Nonsense. She’d have just rolled nonchalantly onto their foot and stayed there until Aziraphale insisted she release them. Much more painful for them, and the added bonus of public humiliation while she was at it. [21.2]_

_[21.1] Irritating, pointless and going absolutely nowhere fast._

_[21.2] The Bentley is not a demon’s car for nothing, after all. Old cars can absolutely learn new tricks, and the Bentley always liked to keep an eye out for new ideas…_

_[22] One of the last things the Bentley had seen in her first life was her angelic friend walking decisively up to a young man blocking his path and pointing a weapon at him and simply wiping him out of the angel’s path completely. Aziraphale had two speeds, in the Bentley’s experience: stationary and break-neck. There was no in-between to him; a fact which was especially frustrating to the Bentley since the angel complained so much when she was the one going at a proper speed... Humph._

_[23] The Bentley probably oughtn’t to find that as comforting as she does…_

**5\. Peace**

If the Bentley were to be very honest, she’d had a few… concerns about life after the End Times.

Not so much about whether those End Times might restart or anything foolish like that, of course. The Bentley has been around far too many road works to have any real expectations that such a work of coordination and planning might be achieved twice in the same 6000 years. It would likely take that long just to finish up the paperwork from the meetings to determine what, exactly, had gone wrong.

Regardless, the Bentley had had some misgivings. She’d been delighted to meet a fellow Object of Interest, as she considered their kind, and happy to have had the opportunity to bring the sword and the angel back together again. She’d been amused, even, to watch her demon ‘defend her honour’ to an angel who had secretly been confiding in her for years. _[24]_

But now that the angel had his _sword_ back, and his _Bookshop_ back, and apparently better than ever from all the Bentley had seen… What use would he have for her? He had all these other Objects to talk to, to confide in, and sit with and none of _them_ even required him to sneak halfway across London to do so.

So she’d waited, but without much hope at all, to see if Aziraphale would continue to visit her after all the fuss had died down…

But he _had_ come, after all.

It had only been a few days, but late into the evening, after Crowley had taken them both home from an evening of wine and whatever strange flirting angels and demons did with each other, parked her and gone upstairs to sleep… _[25]_

There around the corner came her angel, hands in his pockets and all but whistling as he made his way over to her, confident in his welcome as always. Slid right into her back seats, leaned against her side and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Oh, goodness, my dear! _Such_ a relief to get back to normal, isn’t it? Now, what _have_ you been up to with our dear scoundrel, hmm? Don’t you try to dissemble, old girl, he’s been twitchy as a cat with a trapped mouse all evening, I know perfectly well our darling old serpent has some scheme afoot, now confess immediately!”

And the Bentley had almost been relieved enough to actually tell the angel all about the upcoming computer glitches to the motorway signs, causing them to spell out rude jokes rather than lane-changes!

_Almost._

And the angel had _kept on_ coming. He’d tinkered with her wards again, tutting at the Antichrist’s efforts at replicating his years of careful work (and Crowley’s). _[26] _He’d muttered distractedly about his concerns regarding the Bookshop and its many changes and how uncomfortable he was at facing up to his new (old) role. He’d grumbled about his sword and its tendency to follow him around._ [27]_

The Bentley was, of course, delighted to have the company, but there was still something that tickled away at her, like gravel stuck to her under-carriage…

Whenever she had allowed herself to imagine a world after The End, she’d always assumed that she could relax. Worry less about her two dear beings. And Crowley had been obligingly very easy to relax about, now that he’d lost that manic fervour and the desperate look that haunted his eyes. He allowed himself to smile more and kick back a little. He even (she scarcely dared think it lest he realize and stop) hummed a bit as he drove to the Bookshop, most days. It was a great relief to her.

But Aziraphale?

The angel just seems a little … lost. He had no reports to write any longer, no meetings to studiously avoid_ [28]_, no … direction, she supposed. The Bentley was not given much to empathy, but she rather suspected that, much as she might hate road works, she’d be rather lost in the world if she suddenly experienced a complete absence of roads.

The Bentley hadn’t exactly held a high opinion of Heaven and its forces, but there were many members whom Aziraphale had spoken of with genuine fondness, and whom he clearly missed a great deal … before remembering that he could no longer go Upstairs to pay a casual visit.

“I didn’t even talk to them all that much, you know Upstairs.” Aziraphale mutters to her from the comfort of his usual thinking spot._ [29]_ “It’s ridiculous, the way I feel all wrong-footed now that I _can’t_ talk to them. And it’s not that I quite _want_ to talk to them either; what would I even say? ‘Doing well, not missing you at all, Crowley says to go and stuff yourselves?’ Even if they didn’t come to smite us both, it would go down like… now what was it that Crowley said? Oh no, dear, you weren’t here for that conversation; this was back in Eden – goodness that was a long time ago now… 6000 years, indeed. Now then, like a… a _lead balloon._ Yes, that was it! It really _would_ go down like a lead balloon.”

He wriggles around for a while, hands fretting and twitching about her interior as he tries to restrain himself from tinkering around in his distraction. Finally, he pats her fondly and gives her a fond smile of reassurance. The Bentley glows warmly back at him; the angel is always more confident when he is imparting comfort to others after all.

“Oh, I’m ever so glad that you’re still here, my dear old girl… Life just wouldn’t be the same without you to talk to. And Crowley would never recover from your loss, I’m quite sure of it. Best to keep yourself nice and safe from now on, don’t you think?”

She sniffs a crackle of static straight back at him.

_Naturally, and if only you could take the same advice for yourself, you wretched trouble-magnet of an angel…_

“Oh, I know, I shall have to take _very _great care of myself too. Not that I imagine that Crowley will leave either of us with much of a choice in the matter, the overgrown mother-hen… Still, he’s earned a little while of us being very nice and boring for him until he recovers a bit, don’t you think?”

Aziraphale sighs and that strange, lost look returns to his face. The Bentley wishes idly that there was something she could do to help him that didn’t involve hijinks and the risk of discorporation.

He gives her the big blue eyes trick that he flagrantly uses on Crowley in the hopes of mischief. The Bentley is not her demon; she is much stronger against angelic tricks.

“Not that I suppose we’ll have much of a choice, you know. Amazing how botching the End of the World makes for a quiet state of affairs immediately afterwards. Do you know there’s nothing much going on, save for my needing to shoo that dear old – I mean, that blasted flaming sword out of the Bookshop again.”

_Ha! I knew you two would be inseparable if we just threw you together enough!_

The Bentley might have worried about being replaced by the flaming sword,_ [30]_ but there was no doubt in her motor that they had always been meant for each other. The sword was certainly as stubborn as the crazy angel she’d come to love as her own, that couldn’t be denied, and the two Objects had come to an accord that the future safety and wellbeing of their angel and demon.

It was nice to have some back-up around the place after all this time.

Aziraphale narrows his eyes at the Bentley’s dashboard, trying to look stern. “Don’t think I don’t know you two are in cahoots, my dear. Unlike Crowley, _I_ am perfectly aware that supposedly inanimate objects can have a mind of their own. You can’t go pulling the wool over _my_ eyes, I tell you.”

Aziraphale sniffs. “Quite. Honestly, you two… You know, either one of you is far too old for this sort of mischief, I’ll have you know! And what on earth you both stand to gain, I’m sure I cannot imagine! Still, I’m sure it will all work out alright in the end, at least I do hope so.”

“Oh! And have I told you about all the trouble I’ve been having with the Bookshop lately? Honestly, among the three of you, I shall develop all _sorts_ of worry-lines around my face, and these corporations aren’t easy to maintain in the first place I’ll have you know! No buffing out the nicks and scratches like you, old girl!”

_You know nothing of worry, you causer of scratches. I just don’t know what I shall do with you, sometimes, I really don’t. _The grumble is automatic, but then Aziraphale’s first sentence registers and she is thoroughly diverted. _Wait. What has happened to the Bookshop?_

If there had been another fire, something else dreadful had happened, then the Bentley was going to … to… she didn’t know yet, but she’d been a demonic vehicle for decades and had recently died and been resurrected. She would certainly think of Something Unpleasant!

Aziraphale shakes his head, fond. “Oh, that caught your attention, didn’t it? I suppose the sword hasn’t been keeping you up to date with everything, is it? Well, just as well, otherwise what would we find to talk about, just the two of us? I shall fear becoming quite superfluous if you have another playmate, you know…”

_Oh, angel! You do come out with the most utterly ridiculous nonsense sometimes!_ The Bentley cannot help herself and she laughs and laughs. Whoever would have thought that all the time she’s been worrying about Aziraphale having newer and more interesting Objects to talk to, he’d seemed to have worried about the exact same thing! _Everyone we know, and I include ourselves in this, angel, everyone we know is quite mad. You know this, don’t you?_

Aziraphale’s eyes brighten at her laughter, and he scowls in a very unconvincing manner.

“I _heard_ that, wretched machine. You can’t go around laughing at people when they come to see you, you know? It’s frightfully impolite! Still, I’ll see if I can’t bring you up to date on everything…”

The Bentley settles in to listen. The evening is warm, the night is still young and her angelic conversation partner is comfortable and ready to talk.

It had been a long and difficult road to get her, she thinks as she clicks and squeaks at all the right places to encourage a chatty angel to keep going, but it had certainly been worth it…

_[24] Aziraphale had seemingly believed for all of these years that Crowley was unaware of the angel’s little visits. This was not entirely the case. The demon had simply never quite seemed to get around to asking about why Aziraphale spent time sitting in the Bentley, worried that his enquiries might come across as nosy, or worse, a complaint! Even when the angel wasn’t taking Crowley’s calls, he was visiting his car, and while strange it was an oddly sweet thing for Aziraphale to do, to Crowley’s mind. _

_Sadly, he rather thought that the time to ask at all about this little habit had well and truly passed the point of ridiculousness, and the demon had resigned himself to eternally suffer in silence and never get any answers. It wasn’t all bad; after Aziraphale’s little visits the Bentley always smelled of old books and warm baking, and the sun glasses compartment often held a paper bag of boiled sweets. It’s the little things that tell you that your angel cares…_

_[25] Or rather, to sit and stew in the darkness until he could reasonably make up a new excuse to be in his angel’s company again. He also killed a lot of time web-surfing. (Strangely, Crowley’s predictive text from Google was now filling in any “how” search with variations on old-fashioned wooing techniques. No idea how that happened. Oddest thing.)_

_[26] For all his good intentions – and despite being the Antichrist - Adam did not have a good working knowledge of how wards function, are formed and interact with each other to work as intended. For that matter, neither did the Bentley, despite these being her wards in the first place. The end result, therefore, had been a certain degree of guess-working between Antichrist and automobile and_, _as could probably be expected, was a system of very earnest and well-meaning squiggles which is not at all the same thing. The Bookshop - being a bookshop and not a car - is far more well-read and thus fully capable of drawing its own wards up from scratch when given half a chance. Research is an important resource, after all…_

_[27] “Absolutely outrageous behaviour! Not a single word of warning and the poor man nearly tripped right over the wretched thing as he made his escape! Honestly, I don’t know… Had I realised that leaving the dear thing out there in the world would result in it going, why positively feral, I should say! Dreadful! I shall have to take the thing properly in hand and teach it better, see if I don’t!” _

_The Bentley rather suspected that the sword would not object in the slightest to this notion, and was not completely convinced that the angel spending enough time with it to … re-educate … his old, first, companion wasn’t precisely what the cunning Object had aimed for all along…_

_[28] Mostly meetings with Raphael. Gabriel’s interminable meetings, when avoided, just meant Gabriel would drop in (usually with Sandalphon in tow) at inopportune moments at the Bookshop. [28.1] Much less bother all around to attend Gabriel’s meetings however boring they predictably were. Raphael’s meetings, on the other hand, were much easier to avoid since she had the whole of Heaven to keep in good health, and none of the other angels tasked with a mission on Earth had a guardian demon to keep them from being injured or discorporated. _

_If Raphael hadn’t had a somewhat steady stream of other angelic patients, Aziraphale might have had cause to rethink this position…_

_[28.1] Somehow always when Crowley spent the night on the backroom sofa and Aziraphale – lover of a quiet life that he is – vastly preferred mornings which did not involve a panicked snake slithering through the upstairs window to escape unnoticed…_

_ [29] This was entirely untrue, in the Bentley’s educated opinion. Aziraphale was apparently a rather regular visitor to the young guardians Upstairs, from his little anecdotes. He’d certainly spent many hours with her back in the 1950s speaking proudly (if confusedly) of some of the things they’d got up to when not watched closely enough, not to mention merrily recounting with great amusement the thousand year-long saga of their many attempts to ‘Capture The Demon Crowley’. Honestly, the Bentley usually is grateful to have never met another angel, but she was truly fascinated to know what the guardians were like in the … ethereal flesh._

_ [30] Not to mention deeply confused about how the flaming implement of divine damage could ever consider her, The Bentley, to be anything like it in form or function._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, did this chapter get away from me! Sorry this took so long, but once I started writing I just couldn't stop! I was not expecting to have so many thoughts about the Bentley's perspective, but here we all are. I hope you all enjoyed this foray into the thoughts of a car - the real star of the show...
> 
> The result of all these ideas is that I will be making some additions to Chapter 1 of this fic. I'll let you know when the expanded chapter is up, never fear!

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, check out my blog for random thoughts on writing, fantasy, dragons and folklore. Also there's a tiny dragon as a guest-star, so that can't be bad!  
I can be found at: <https://herebeblog.wordpress.com/>


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